


A Klick or Two West of Fine

by WhoopsOK



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Banned Together Bingo, Character Study, Consent Issues, Dean Winchester's First Time With a Man, Dialogue Light, Escort Sam Winchester, Family Drama, Hopeful Ending, Lack of Communication, Male Escort, Multi, Past Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, Sex Work, Sex Worker Sam Winchester, Sexual Content, Shame, Sibling Incest, The Winchesters First Time Together, They talk it out eventually sort of, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:53:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoopsOK/pseuds/WhoopsOK
Summary: Dean has run through many women, a lot of their time paid for, and he’s in no position to judge the positions they let him put them in. He’s not in a position to judge Sam either. Out of all the things Sam has done, this is one that Dean has no right to make him feel ashamed for. Sam worked a job, same as anyone else.(Sam was an escort in college. Dean does not take this news well. Eventually, they work it out.)
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester/Other(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 51
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	A Klick or Two West of Fine

**Author's Note:**

> You know, the boys struggle with talking to each other about some things, so I wanted to play around with the idea of a fic with no/limited dialogue. For no reason other than to see what it’d be like. [puts on safety goggles and gloves] This is an experiment, watch your step and mind your elbows. Take notes, too, I’d love to know what you thought.
> 
> BTB Fill for Male Escort
> 
> Obligatory aside: SWERFs swerve on out of here, I don’t want your hateration or holleration in my dancery.

After, Sam stands in the bathroom and makes himself think about it.

When he’d run away from home—from Dean, from John, from living out of the backseat of the Impala—he’d made a promise to himself that he would be different. There are things they have given him that he will always carry, some lighter and more willingly than others, but he won’t force himself to die slowly, not the way they are. He won’t try to swallow his emotions, choking them down far enough that he can pretend they don’t exist, that he isn’t struggling to breathe around them. He doesn’t want to be that way.

So, he faces himself in the mirror and makes himself think about it, make a mental catalogue.

These are his lips, bitten and sore, but that’s not so different. The bruise on his throat smarts a little, but in a way that implies a clumsy lack of control when aroused, nothing deeper or more insidious. It’s a little annoying, but it doesn’t hurt him to look at; he stares, mostly in wonder. He hasn’t showered yet, so the smells—fancy restaurant, strange cologne, _sex sweat_ —sit heavy on his clothes, in his hair. Still, he doesn’t gag or anything. That can all be showered off. He doesn’t feel the need to wash his insides, to scrub his skin or anything. His jaw aches and he’s got rug burn on his knees from expensive hotel carpet. He looks at his hands— _they’re fine_ —and his eyes— _they’re the same_ —and feels… _different_ , but not changed fundamentally.

The suit is new, nicer than he’d have been able to afford for himself and that sort of sums up his feelings on the matter. It’s not that he’s a different person for what he’s done.

More like he’s looking at himself from an angle he’s never had to consider before. He doesn’t mind it, it’s no less flattering than anything else about him. It’s almost funny, in a weird sort of way. He doesn’t quite laugh, but he lifts his shoulders, shrugging at himself bemusedly, _how about that, huh, Sam?_ He shrugs and showers off the dinner party and the man who’d taken him to it.

Every few days, or weeks if he’s unlucky, he winds up with a new set of clothing, or a watch, or a necklace, and enough money in his bank account that everything he gets isn’t rushed hand to mouth. He uses the quickness of his tongue to broker other deals and line his pockets.

He finds that even if he doesn’t have time to shower straight away, he feels fine. He keeps track of himself—he’s the only one around to do so—and he keeps going, keeps himself open, because it doesn’t hurt him. Everything is— _hectic, different, stressful, good, bad, beautiful, hilarious, growing_ —fine and so is Sam.

Eventually, he doesn’t even feel the need to think about it so much.

*

This remains true for over two years.

Then Sam doesn’t think about it because there’s a woman who smiles at him like sunlight and takes up all his spare time and thoughts, of which he doesn’t have much, but gladly takes the pay hit to give to her.

Then that woman is going up in flames on his ceiling, burning up the rest of his life right along with her, and Sam isn’t sleeping, or eating, or _breathing_ , or thinking about anything else.

*

Later, much later, after he’s readjusted to the knowledge that he was never going to escape this impala, Sam spends some of his nights thinking about them.

The mostly nameless faces who picked him as their preferred arm candy, sometimes crawled over him or under him, pressed into him as deep as they could get. Sometimes he thinks of them fondly, wonderingly as though they were old classmates (some were) and hopes they’re somewhere better. Some he thinks of with the annoyed levity that people who face customers must have in order to tell stories about them.

Sam only has himself to tell these stories to, though.

In the darkness, staring at the cracked plaster of yet another motel wall or gazing absently out Baby’s window, he runs through what they wanted from him. And the parties they took him to, the penthouse suites they rented to impress him, the clothes they bought him just to see him in them. But also, who they pretended he was for the sake of their audience verses who they pretended he was when they were alone. And where he saw them on purpose verses where they locked eyes with him, in ashen shock, accidentally. How much they paid for him to keep their secrets.

Often, he thinks about how some were faking love on him—the names they whispered when he made them love themselves—and hopes they found someone to lay in his place and love them back.

He thinks about their love, because really, it was. The temporary, erotic sort of love, but it was love. The kind that’s easier to think about when the heavy, loaded love between he and anyone he really cares about now gets too thick to wade through.

Dean is only the span of a gear shift away and Sam is suffocating.

*

It’s not a secret he keeps out of shame.

Sam doesn’t regret most of college, not in a mortal way. Everyone regrets taking an 8am chem class or accidently matching with their TA on a seedy escort site, but that’s nothing that weighs on his soul. Sam likes carrying college with him, even if Jess— _sunlight smile, burning hair, burning skin_ —is enough to make him want to set himself on fire some days, he can’t _unlove_ her or the choices that led her to him. He was cursed and couldn’t have known ( _he hates himself, but he knows it’s not his fault, neither her death nor how much he hates himself for it_ ) and he can’t regret learning to love like a normal human being around the taste of her laugh.

To get back to the point, it isn’t shame.

Sam is sitting in a different life, the same one as _Before_ , though it’s gone through the wash cycle and come out different. It consistently feels like waking up from a fever dream and remembering that, yes, this nightmare is real, not the other way around.

For a while, he’d been scared to lose them, his previous clients, because, for a while, he’d lost his mind and couldn’t sort out what was real and what wasn’t. But years later, it’s as together as it ever will be. He is missing more names and a few faces, but most are still there.

That’s how he knows why Peter Wallbrook freezes like he’s seen a ghost when he spots Sam in the doorway before going strawberry red and choking on his beer. Sam had never known his full name, but now he will never forget it or the look that reaction puts on Dean’s face.

Sam didn’t keep the whole escort-turned-sex-worker thing from Dean out of shame. He kept it because Dean liked to write tragedies and make himself the perpetrator. Sam knows which things were not his fault and which were, he does, but Dean likes to take all of those things and wear them like a crown of thorns.

_Sam was hurt because Dean wasn’t there for him, Sam ran away because Dean wasn’t there for him, Sam became a whore because Dean wasn’t there for him_ , and all things before, after, and in between.

Somehow, in Dean’s mind, it would be Dean’s fault. Sam has kept this secret for years because it would hurt Dean and he thinks the world has given more than a fair share of pain to his big brother.

So even though he feels no shame—only an at once warm-and-cold flash of shock—he instinctively wants to grab Dean and walk away, leave Peter to his fate.

But he has never been that kind of man and neither has Dean. And. _Well_.

Peter is softer in the face and kinder about the eyes than he was ten years ago; he has a wedding band and a tie tack clearly made by tiny, loving hands. ( _And Peter had called him ‘my beautiful friend’ and dressed him in clothes he actually liked and got him off when it came down to that and bought his textbooks and wished him the best of luck before he left town for a new life_.)

…And Peter is a victim and Sam has too much death on his head to leave anyone to die.

Dean is staring at them, the way Peter is stumbling to try and figure out what to say and Sam is smiling, actually, because this is _ridiculous_ and he doesn’t know what he would say, either. He leads the conversation to the point, tells the truth with the ripping-the-bandage-off quickness he’s called Dean crazy for, because this is a bandage that has to be ripped off. In more ways than the one.

Peter stares at him for a long time after. Then puts his head in his hands.

It’s been rumored his grandmother was a witch.

( _She was and Sam carefully avoids telling Peter that they burn her bones and not just her broach. He refills the grave himself while Dean watches, annoyed almost to the point of anger. Sam feels the conversation coming._ )

It’s when they’re leaving town, when he hangs back because he knows Peter wants to say something, that Sam realizes the last time he felt _fine_ , he was in the life Peter knew him for. He realizes this because Peter asks how he is with genuine curiosity and Sam doesn’t know how to answer. He tells some of the truth, which alarms him, because it feels like blowing his nose after sniffling for years. He’d forgotten how hard it is to breathe around the secrets and emotional choking he promised he’d never do until he lets himself stop, just a little for just a moment. It makes him feel a little guilty, but Peter doesn’t look sad or pitying, so Sam shakes it off.

But then again, Peter hadn’t looked _interested_ either, but in the next moment, he quickly presses a wad of twenties into Sam’s hand.

Peter says it’s not enough.

Oh. Sam says they don’t do this for pay.

Peter says that isn’t what the money’s for.

_Oh._ Sam opens his mouth to say he isn’t doing that kind of thing any more, but freezes there. He isn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t, if asked by a fond memory, if in exchange for nearly a few hundred dollars cash in hand.

Peter says he didn’t tip him the night he ordered Sam’s books so, hell, here it is with interest.

They stand there for a few breaths, long enough for the both of them to smile and go a little pink, maybe even feeling a little like the younger, clumsier people they were the last time they spoke. This time, though, Sam does consider being the one to ask for it, the urge rises in him easily. Peter had soft hands and a musical laugh and had sex like it was dancing. And, really, Sam hadn’t been waiting on those tips, that was really nice of him and Sam _likes_ nice, it doesn’t always have to be hard and fast, does it?

But Sam feels the money between their palms in a stark contrast to the ring he feels around Peter’s finger. Peter has a spouse and child and a life that doesn’t need Sam Winchester traipsing through it, smudging the walls.

They drop hands at the same time.

Again, like so long ago, Sam is wished the very best of luck and left standing with more money than expected and a weird fluttering feeling in his stomach. The fluttering is not from Peter’s half-smile as he walks away, though.

It’s from Dean’s eyes boring into his skull from the driver’s seat.

*

If Sam were braver, or perhaps more defensive, he would bring it up immediately. But he is not feeling particularly brave nor does he feel like he should be defending himself from the storm in Dean’s eyes.

For the past half-hour, Dean’s been pushing the needle past eighty, the Metallica cassette playing just softly enough for Sam to know Dean doesn’t want him to think he’s upset, like it’s not all over his face. Sam is understanding, with more certainty as the seconds tick by, that Dean is going to be upset no matter what he says.

No sooner does he open his mouth to rip off another bandage, though, does Dean quite abruptly blurt out that he doesn’t hate gay people.

Sam’s mouth snaps shut in shock. Whatever Dean sees in his eyes flusters him, makes him talk too quickly to say he isn’t accusing Sam, of course not, he’s just—he’s just _saying_ , because there was something—Peter looked at him like—never mind, it doesn’t matter. Look, Dean doesn’t _think_ he ever gave off that vibe, but he knows he’s a bit of a cowboy about some things, so he wants it clear that he doesn’t hate gay people, never did, not even a little. No matter who—no matter what, ok?

All the while, his eyes are no longer stormy, but wide and nervous, flickering between Sam and the road like he’s expecting one to suddenly swerve on him. Sam is touched and guilty. This would be a fantastic opportunity to dodge the whole conversation, but… that would feel too much like shame.

Plus, there’s some little part of him—he can’t tell if it’s sick or tired or mean or just _honest_ —that wants Dean to know the truth.

Sam likes men and women, tells Dean that.

Dean says ok.

Sam never dated Peter, tells Dean that.

Dean says ok, pauses, then asks if he wanted to.

Sam takes a silent breath and says he didn’t want to shit where he was eating.

That doesn’t sit right on Dean, clearly, the confused flicker across his face lets Sam know it doesn’t even register for a long time until—

Sam catches himself with a hand on the dashboard when Dean swerves over the rumble strip and slams on the breaks. He whips to look at Sam, wild-eyed with violence Sam knows isn’t directed at him, but makes him wince anyway.

Dean asks him what the fuck _that_ means and Sam says he thinks Dean knows.

The silence that follows is not actually any less stifling and Sam is kicking himself for thinking it would be freeing. It’s so tense that when Dean, patchy red-and-pale, tears his gaze away to look down at the dash, it feels like it breaks the air, Sam’s struggling not to start panting, his breath and heartbeat noisy in his own ears. He doesn’t feel fine anymore, _stupid, stupid, of course not,_ he’s never fine when Dean’s not, he should’ve let Peter be an ex in Dean’s mind.

When Dean asks when this happened, he tells the truth and watches Dean’s stifled, hardly noticeable flinch. Then he tells, _begs_ Dean not to make this into a tragedy, don’t make this painful, it doesn’t need to be. He didn’t smile at Peter earlier because he was traumatized, he smiled because it was _funny_ and Sam likes him. Not always, not all of them, but some of them he just _liked._ He wasn’t forced, he wasn’t hurt, he doesn’t regret it. It was fine.

When Dean, in a tight, angry voice says hooking isn’t fine, Sam flashes unpleasantly hot, angry.

The words that jump out have more teeth than Sam meant for them to, mostly because they’re the truth. Dean has run through many women, a lot of their time paid for, and he’s in no position to judge the positions they let him put them in. He’s not in a position to judge Sam either. Out of all the things Sam has done, this is one that Dean has no right to make him feel ashamed for. Sam worked a job, same as anyone else. It was fine.

Dean never would’ve let—

It wasn’t Dean’s body or decision.

The silence continues to stifle until Dean puts the car back in drive without another word, Metallica turned up to level ten. Sam’s ears are ringing when he goes to bed without having heard his brother’s voice again.

Fine feels like a place he visited once, years ago, and lost the map to.

*

Of course, it’s petty, Sam knows that, but if this is how things are going to be between them, he’s going to have a good time with it.

Dean is barely speaking to him, but the concern and self-flagellation Sam had expected are smothered behind some kind of righteous offence Sam can’t figure out. They work the next case without saying anything other than what’s necessary to stay safe and Dean hardly looks at him. Sam hasn’t felt shame, not in the _ten years_ since he’s been out and he’s _pissed_ Dean is making that feeling seep out of some crack in the back of his mind.

Getting back into the game isn’t necessary. They make enough on credit card scams and hustling (and the occasional outright thievery), but, frankly, why the fuck not give it a shot? It can’t be the way it was before, they aren’t stationary enough for that, but Sam knows how to find customers on the fly, too. He knows the kinder words like _escort_ and _sugar baby_ will stop applying if he does, but…

It’s not like he’ll ever complain about having extra cash.

Mr. Reese, and Sam highly doubts that’s his name, is in older man in an expensive suit; ex-cop or military maybe, definitely carrying at least one gun (that Sam does not lose track of the whole night, he’s no fool). He buys Sam a beer and lets him see the money in his wallet when he does. He stands close enough that Sam is warm all up his left side, more than a little turned on in his jeans. He tosses his hair back and asks what Reese might be looking for.

As it turns out, he’s looking for whatever fifteen hundred bucks will get him.

The answer is _a lot._ Sam texts Dean that he’ll be back late and leaves without waiting for the response. He isn’t stupid enough to get tied up (especially not with at least one gun in the coat by the door), but he holds Reese’s tie in his hands when he’s laid down and doesn’t hold back a single sound. Reese has gun rough hands and a clever tongue and by the time he asks Sam to ride him, Sam is shaking, begging for it (the latter perhaps a little dramatically, but Reese seems to like it and he _does_ have a nice dick, so sue him). Reese keeps it up for a long time, longer than Sam thought his silvery hair and tired smile implied he might’ve been able to, so Sam’s thighs are on fire by the end of it.

The end being when Reese presses up deep, says someone else’s name, and jerks Sam off over his own chest. If Sam walks a little crookedly when he leaves the room, he’s not actually complaining. Maybe he bruised his thigh when the ghost from a few hours ago had pinned him against the wall with a desk, who’s to say really…

The bruises on his wrists are pretty distinct, though. There’s only ever been one other guy, _once_ , who was strong enough to hold him down unless Sam _really_ put up a fight. Mr. Reese is a rarity, in his strength _and_ his cleanliness. Both of which Sam appreciates almost as much as the 1550 in his wallet.

The plan was to slip back into the motel room and shower without even turning the lights on, but the hazy blue glow of the television is shining through the blinds as he walks up. He sends up a quiet thought to nobody that Dean is just sleeping with it on, but isn’t really surprised when he opens the door to see Dean sitting up, fully dressed.

Sam stops in the doorway, suddenly feeling every place Reese touched him as though it were glowing, visible through his clothes. His ass is still a little wet and he hopes the heat on his face isn’t too abrupt in the dim light. Dean is staring at him like it just might be though.

But Dean doesn’t ask anything, so Sam doesn’t give any answers.

When he gets out of the shower, the TV is off and Dean is feigning sleep.

The silence is still tight, but at least Sam is tired enough that he manages to nod off before sunrise.

*

Sam barely gets in five more clients before things start getting out of hand.

It’s clear Dean is _fucking fuming_ , but he refuses to acknowledge that he knows what Sam is doing, so Sam pretends he doesn’t know why. Being on the road already makes it hard to find buyers, he isn’t looking to get arrested for solicitation, but now it seems like Dean is constantly in a hurry now. The case is over, why hang around, there’s another that needs their immediate attention three states over, they’ve got to rush. Sam sees right through that bullshit, but doesn’t call Dean out on it. They still have to stop to sleep. There are still people who find Sam _unbelievably_ attractive, no matter what state they’re in or what state _he’s_ in to be honest.

Mrs. Carmichael vies for his attention while he’s sweating like a pig, grave dirt up to his knees and blood on his temple. Dean is busy talking to the feds, so he says yes, pins her to the wall of her shed by the neck like she asks him to. It’s the first time he’s ever been tipped with a tin of maple sugar cookies.

Dean is doing his best to run defense, but Sam has spent the majority of his life with Dean, knows every single one of his tricks. He knows how much it irks him to not stay ahead of Sam, to not be able to get between him and anything Dean doesn’t like the look of. Sam wishes it weren’t like this, wishes he didn’t get petty joy out of the way Dean’s mouth pinches every time he wanders back from pleasuring someone.

Then Dean—for the first time and completely on fucking accident—catches him in the act.

The guy doesn’t even give Sam a name. He gives off the vibe of every douchey business major Sam has ever met, but no worse than that. He’s talking a little too loud, but isn’t calling overt attention to the fact that he’s thumbing that hundred at Sam for a reason, so Sam leans into the role of a blue collar nobody trying to pay for law school cruising in dive bars.

When he’s got the guy—he’s calling him Chad in his head because, _come on_ —pinned against the wall in the back hall of the bar, panting and writhing as Sam mouths at his neck, he feels him go tense all over. It’s just for a split second before he chuckles lowly, closing a hand around the back of Sam’s neck, half in his hair to keep him in place. Sam shudders—he likes that, but isn’t going to ask this knucklehead to pull his hair—and asks if everything is okay.

Chad bites at his ear, whispers something about Sam’s boyfriend looking jealous.

Pulling back in confusion, he takes in the cocky look on his face, turning and—

Dean’s there.

Through the porthole in the door to this hall, far enough away to not be an immediate threat to a guy who doesn’t know any better, but still immovably there. _Watching._

Sam recognizes all of his brother’s expressions. He _always_ has, or at least he’d say he did.

Still, it’s nearly a physical shock to his system to turn and find that a stranger was able to ping the look on Dean’s face with a few distracted seconds’ worth of looking. It disappears almost the exact moment Sam’s gaze lands on him, lost under a lip curling rush of annoyance, but Sam didn’t miss it. He knows his brother’s face.

Maybe there has been something distracting him from reading it correctly lately, because jealousy doesn’t fit into the messy box of feelings Sam had thought Dean was carrying. _Jealous?_

_Why?_

There’s a nip to the side of his neck that startles him a little, reflexively has him blurting out not to mark him up. Chad says he’ll up his price if Sam takes his dick right here, asks if his boyfriend would keep watching.

And the thing is, Sam… doesn’t think Dean will.

But until a few seconds ago, the idea of his brother being jealous of the sex he’s having seemed unrealistic, too. He’s quickly trying to recalibrate his own understanding of his brother.

That’s over twenty years of rebooting to do.

Saying yes would be crossing a line, but only if Dean stood there watching, _knowing_ what was about to happen. A mutual— _is it really_ —breaching of boundaries.

Sam doesn’t have to agree to this; he could give the money back, insist they get to the closet they’d been walking towards, _anything_.

Dean doesn’t have to stand there watching Sam give it up.

It’s an old game, they’ve played it before, _who’s gonna flinch first?_ The stakes have never been quite this high, left Sam feeling so wildly off-balance, but the trick to winning is the same. Dean always thinks Sam will flinch first, like he hasn’t learned that his brother has the same doggedness he does when they get right down to the bare bones of each other.

Sam whispers his price and Chad puts a hand on his shoulder to push him to his knees.

Even though he can’t turn to look— _won’t_ turn to look, it feels like Dean’s eyes are a brand, searing right through the grip Chad gets on the back of his neck. Normally, Sam would try to play into whatever his clients want; if they want to think they’ve tamed someone bigger than them into a needy slut, if they want to believe he’s _never_ been tamed and that’s why they’re facedown beneath him, if they think he’s just a very nice man with very nice hands and soft lips.

Chad is making the needle waver between the first and last options, but Sam can’t focus enough to lean into either of those characters. Right now, it’s all he can do to remember the steps to this. He turns down the money Chad offers to skip the condom, doesn’t need it, won’t risk it these days, and makes himself focus on the taste of plasticky vanilla as he makes good on what he was paid for.

And Sam _is_ good at this, he wouldn’t have bothered to keep doing it if he wasn’t going to put in the effort.

There’s an alarm ringing in the back of his mind that his sudden, edgy eagerness to please has nothing at all to do with the way Chad is moaning for him.

There are things that Dean has always brought out in him, but not—never like this. Their childhood, their entire relationship was marked by a chronic lack of privacy and boundaries, but Sam doesn’t delude himself into thinking this is the same thing. For wherever his thoughts may have _wandered_ when he was frustrated out of his mind and just trying to take a moment’s peace to jerk off, he’d never intentionally let Dean stay in the front of his mind. He was a passing thought—a reminder to hurry up and stay quiet, because motel walls are thin and showers don’t run hot forever. The thought of what sex with the girls Dean snuck off with— _of Dean having sex with the girls he—_

Huh. _Huh_.

That’s probably a thought to be examined later when he’s not trying to get someone off, though to be fair, Chad seems perfectly fine with his present attentions. Sam relaxes his throat when Chad starts to move, makes a point to groan a little like it’s difficult— _it’s not_ —until Chad is throwing his head back, cursing too loud like he’s in a porno or some shit. It’s really tacky.

It does nothing to put a damper on the heat coursing through Sam’s body, though. He doesn’t allow himself—he doesn’t _want_ to think about Dean like this, but his presence, his _awareness_ of what’s going on has gotten it’s hooks in Sam’s mind and made him think. As Chad slumps back against the wall, flush-faced and out of breath, Sam has a dizzying moment of wondering where…his brother even _wants_ to be in all this. Because it doesn’t seem like it’s a matter of _if_ anymore, not now that Sam is looking at it in the right lighting, out from under his own anger and hurt.

Sam licks his lips and lets Chad lead him back to his feet with a knuckle under his chin. Chad is mumbling some filth about cucking his boyfriend and how much better his dick is and how much Sam liked it, yadda, yadda. Corny shit that Sam is mostly tuning out, replying only in (only mostly faked) moans as Chad rubs him through his pants. _Does_ Sam want this?

Not _this_ as in Chad, that doesn’t really matter, it’s just the variety of someone else’s hand on his dick. Does Sam want _Dean_?

_Yes,_ the answer comes easy as breathing, but it’s misshapen from usual. The usual yes is in the sense that before Sam ever learned to love anyone else, he loved his brother and doesn’t want to lose that. The usual yes is that he never has to _try_ to love his brother, he just does, even on the days he thinks he should hate him. The usual yes is knowing that everywhere else in his life is uncertain and every other relationship a risk that usually doesn’t pay out, where being with Dean is just…the way the world works. There are two Winchesters. They are a pair before they’re anything else. Sam is Dean’s and Dean is Sam’s.

But do they want it like _this_?

Chad’s hand is clumsy and careless, but Sam lets himself imagine it different. He promised he wouldn’t crush himself years ago and in this, he has to think about it or it might sneak up and take his legs out from under him. He imagines Dean’s hand— _uncertain, maybe, but never clumsy or careless, not with Sam_ —in Chad’s place, the drag of his calluses, imagines the familiar smell of his brother and the rasp of his voice against his ear, _Sammy_ —

The feeling of the end rushing up to meet him is not quite a surprise. He lets it wash over him, doesn’t even focus on how annoyed he’ll be in a few moments that Chad didn’t bother to aim away from his clothes. Everything else, the clarity that only comes after coming, is rushing in, leaving his heartbeat still pounding away in his chest, the normal comedown lost in a swirl of uncertainty.

Did he fuck this up? He knows Dean as well as he knows himself, knows that this will never be easy, but will Dean forgive himself for wanting this? Sam doesn’t doubt that he _does_ , but Dean has been cutting off pieces of himself to keep his Sammy safe since before he was old enough to understand the damage it’d do. Will he blame himself for Sam’s wanting? Sam is sifting through his memory for one spec of something being off color for siblings. But even when their whole lives were off center, there was never a point where Sam felt Dean’s affection crawl the wrong way over his skin. Sam never knew. How long has Dean been swallowing this? _Why only now_ , what is it about Sam being a sex worker that made it all come up?

…Will Dean even let them have this?

By the time Sam is turning away from Chad, the window at the end of the hall is empty and has no answers for him.

*

The next day, it seems like Dean is steadfastly trying to pretend nothing was ever wrong to begin with.

It’s an annoyingly admirable attempt, undercut only by the way Dean still can barely look him in the eyes. Any other time in the past few weeks, Sam might’ve chalked it up to disgust, used it to fuel his own anger. Now, he just sees it for the guilt it is. Dean is constant noise and motion, anxious to fill the air before Sam can get a word in edgewise. A far cry from the hypervigilance of the past few weeks, it seems his new form of self-flagellation is straight up _ghosting_ any time someone even looks at Sam twice. Sam hasn’t taken any other clients yet, hasn’t even fucked anyone for fun, but Dean wouldn’t know that seeing as to how he’s desperately trying to avoid getting caught looking at Sam. Their wires have gotten all crossed and Sam doesn’t know how to start untangling them.

So, he takes a stab at the obvious.

Sam loves and wants Dean more than anyone else in the whole goddamn world. He cares about him more than any amount of money or the touch of any other body against his would ever amount to, would give up anything to keep Dean close to him. He would never, _never_ hate him for anything he does or feels or wants, especially not about Sam. He says all this out loud, consciously holds back the ‘ _and fuck you for thinking otherwise_ ’ that’s right at the back of his throat, if not the tip of his tongue. Dean doesn’t deserve that; Sam has not always been the most understanding brother.

Dean also probably doesn’t deserve Sam stalking off as soon as he says all that. But after Dean’s face flickers briefly like he’s afraid he’s being accused of something, he takes a breath and rolls his eyes like he wants to make light of all that to clear his own discomfort. Sam may have decked him if he had to hear it. He’s gone before Dean can get the words out of his mouth, ignores him when he calls his name.

For a few days, Sam leaves Dean to chew on that. He doesn’t bring it up again, doesn’t try to demand any answers. He promised himself he wouldn’t choke on his feelings and he isn’t, he aired them out. This new thing between them, this new awareness neither of them will call direct attention to, isn’t festering, at least. Rolling to a boil, maybe—if the amount of jerking off Sam is doing is any indication—but it’s not rotting the space between them.

This is the closest Sam has felt to right around his brother in a long time. It feels like they’re just a few adjustments from the puzzle pieces sliding back into their proper places.

Then Dean takes a leap Sam isn’t expecting and asks if he was really okay, with the whole…you know.

The hesitance in the softly spoken question snatches Sam’s attention away from his dinner so abruptly he’s wondering if he imagined it. But no, Dean is pointedly looking out the window of the diner even though he probably can’t make out anything through the glare from the fluorescents over head. He’s barely touched his burger, too, which Sam had noticed, but hadn’t known how to ask about without asking about _everything_.

Apparently, that’s what they’re going to do tonight, though, or at least start doing.

Sam answers the question with the truth Dean hadn’t been willing to hear before. Then answers all the other questions Dean comes up with, even the invasive ones because, well… Winchesters.

It’s not a conversation he’s ever really had the opportunity to have before. There were a few other students pulling similar gigs at Stanford, but they all had a very similar attitude about the whole thing. They knew when to call the cops if someone missed a check-in, warned each other about shitty johns—a term that makes Sam wince to this day—but they didn’t have any deep, heartfelt conversations.

Tonight, Sam spills all, staring with Peter and working his way out to the first person ever, the night he decided he could do this, and around from there. He knows he’s unusually lucky in that he didn’t run into any serious trouble—from his clients or the law—but it’s never been more of a relief than getting to tell his big brother he _was_ fine and _is_ fine now, too. Dean takes the whole thing remarkably well considering how it went when he first found out. It doesn’t quite clear the air between them, not when Sam still doesn’t bring up the incident with Chad and Dean doesn’t either.

Dean _does_ ask about the MILF in the blue button down seated alone at the counter, though.

Surprise makes Sam’s eyes pop wide before he can fix his expression. He doesn’t have to look at who Dean is talking about, he’d caught her looking when they came in and hadn’t done much more than shoot her a smile. She had the vibe of someone with good money, but good enough taste to spend it in restaurants like this where she’d probably taken her college-aged kids before she had good money. Hit or miss if she’d pay for sex though.

Sam isn’t…quite sure what’s happening here, but Dean is smirking behind his beer when he asks if Sam could pull her, what he’d have to say to get her alone.

It feels a little like a trap, but more like a challenge. Sam can’t imagine why Dean doesn’t think he’d rise to it, unless… that’s the point of this.

Something about it leaves him feeling off balance and hot, but he tells Dean how he’d do it, how he’d gauge if she would give an overgrown rent boy the time of day.

When Dean tells Sam to go show her a good time, Sam… does it.

As it turns out, Evelyn _will_ give him the time of day, she’ll even pay him for it.

Sam is attentive and throws himself into her with the sort of pointed focus that has made people cry for him before. Evelyn is much more inclined towards screaming than crying, but that suits him just as well. He’s here to pleasure her, he enjoys giving it, but it’s…nothing compared to the knife’s edge of desire at the back of Sam’s mind knowing that Dean _sent_ him to her, that he knows what his little brother is doing.

This time, when Sam gets back to the motel and the lights are on, he only feels a nervous twist of anticipation.

Dean is sitting up in bed and gives Sam a lingering look that tingles through his whole body. It doesn’t feel like a crime, like he’s done something he needs to hide, not this time. The appraisal tickles over his skin and he lets himself be observed. He smells like Evelyn’s perfume and gave her the allowance of a hickey he’d denied Chad. Dean’s gaze gets stuck on it, then snags on Sam’s lips, kiss-bitten and tender red. His attention stays there when he asks what Sam did for her.

Sam feels like he’s been filled to the brim with hot water, just shy of boiling.

But he answers the question, because he never made any rules about not kissing and telling, not here, not with Dean. So he tells him how she liked to be kissed, how she led him by the hair to kiss her breasts, then down between her legs, how she shouted and clawed her way through every orgasm he gave her, how she made him beg to fuck her and he did, made a good showing of it, before she rode him with her head thrown back until she was hoarse before she let him come.

By the end of it, Sam’s heart is pounding in his chest and Dean’s eyes have gone all dark in a way Sam has never had directed at him. Sam can’t make himself cut a look at Dean’s lap, but he has a feeling—

When Dean offers him first shower, he takes it in a sudden burst of motion, too much energy flowing through him to keep himself in check. Dean may do things at break neck speeds sometimes, but Sam isn’t going to crash into his brother when they just barely got to this point intact.

Sam leaves the wad of cash on the counter and shucks his clothes with far less grace than he normally would. The fact that he’s able to pull himself off again is _ridiculous_ given the sex he just had, but he does it, doesn’t think to hard about anything other than biting his lip to keep quiet. When he leaves the shower, he hesitates a moment when he reaches to grab his money before deciding to leave it there.

The TV is playing on low while he gets dressed, feeling Dean’s eyes between his shoulder blades. Dean goes to shower with a nod as Sam crawls into bed, tired, but still fuzzy with lingering adrenaline. Even straining his ears, he can’t make out any specific sounds other than the general running shower, but that is one of the many songs on the soundtrack of his life. It pulls him to sleep in spite of how keyed up he’s feeling.

The next morning, the money is gone and neither of them says a word about it.

*

It becomes a habit.

Not one often indulged in, not with the lives they lead, but nothing that happens more than once with Dean is ever a fluke. He’s scouting out people for Sam between cases when they’re both overboiled with energy and need to come down. Even though Sam is absolutely getting off, it feels like the world’s longest tease in the best way. Dean has figured out how to pick good marks, but more than that, he’s unnervingly attuned to Sam’s type. It’s for pay, Sam doesn’t cross those wires, but he’s having a _great_ time. After every client, Sam comes back to Dean afterwards, sweaty and smelling like someone else, and talks Dean off. That’s what it is, there isn’t a way around it, because Sam has _seen_ now, has seen the hard outline of Dean’s arousal in his jeans. It’s running him out of his head with desperation, but Dean hasn’t taken another step towards him and they have to move in sync or this will never work.

So, they circle each other, Dean pointing out gifts to Sam and pocketing the cash, jacking himself off one thin motel door away. Sam waits. He waits because he hadn’t spent as long wanting as his brother and will wait until Dean has shaken the rust off. He’ll keep waiting even if it stops being _waiting_ and just becomes something they do. If this is them, Sam can live with that.

Until a different sort of ghost catches Dean’s eye, has him pausing with his fork full of pie half into his mouth.

Sam is thinking he’d do just about anything to pull whoever just walked in the door if they put that fucking look on Dean’s face, surprised for a moment, before going vacant with whatever he’s imagining Sam doing to the person behind him.

Then Sam sees him and feels alarmingly like he’s sixteen years old all over again.

The guy… _remarkably_ resembles Dean in his younger years, so much so that it makes Sam’s stomach swoop as soon as he lays eyes on him.

For all that there is a gap in Sam’s wanting, it doesn’t take much for the idea to grab him by the throat. Dean freshly twenty, winking at just about every skirt that walked by, charming most of them into walking by again. He looked good and he knew it and so did everyone else, even Sam in a distant way that was smeared over by…how angry he was at the time.

That version Sam wouldn’t have been ready for this, he barely feels ready for this _now_ , but he can imagine himself there. A kid in a way Dean never got to be, all teenaged frustration and pent-up energy and feelings, just a few years short of severing all ties, Dean’s hand on the side of his neck pulling him close, _come on, Sammy_ —

A smile stretches across the stranger’s face when he speaks to the hostess, bright and sweet, and it’s wrong, his eyes are blue, Sam _wants—_

Sam gasps out a refusal, more vehemently than he really means to, chest suddenly tight. He watches Dean’s eyes snap back to him instantly, the right color, the most perfect shade of green Sam has ever seen or will see. No, _no_ , not _him._

Because Sam can’t—He has to hope Dean understands the _I want you, I want you, please,_ in his refusal because it’s gotten caught in his throat. The others were toys to him as much as he was to them, but he can already feel Dean’s name rumbling out of his chest if he were to lay with that kid. That’s not the version of Dean that would survive his wanting, because Sam suddenly isn’t even sure he can survive it himself.

Shock blows Dean’s expression completely, disturbingly blank, just long enough for Sam’s heart to stop, thinking he’d ruined everything, knocked the game they were playing right off the table. Then Dean breathes in like he’d forgotten he needed air until just then and goes fumbling in his pocket.

Dean puts his entire wallet on the table between Sam’s hands. _All in._

That’s where this bottleneck was always going to dump them out, wasn’t it?

Sam’s hands are shaking when he takes it, fumbles out enough cash to cover the bill and a pretty generous tip, too. He pockets the wallet. Dean doesn’t ask for it back.

Honestly, Sam is expecting Dean to wait until they’re behind the closed door of the motel, but he’s not quite surprised that as soon as he falls into Baby’s passenger seat, Dean’s hand is hovering over his neck, close enough to give him goosebumps.

“Sammy,” he says like it’s a question, like it’s _ever_ been a question.

“Dean,” Sam answers, like it’s easy, because it is. Then says it again when Dean’s hand—warm and callused—closes around his neck and pulls him closer; then again against his lips before he loses the space to say anything at all.

It feels like coming home. All the warmth and love of a long lived-in house, of a place Sam knows he belongs with a certainty that he doesn’t question. He clutches at Dean’s shirt, clings to every familiar piece of this new experience and _melts_ into it. He’s stopped shaking by the time Dean lets him up for air, even though he’s been pressed back into the door, half under Dean.

Sam’s name is a question once again.

Deans name is an answer once again.

They make it to the motel before Dean’s patience— _how many years has he been waiting_ —frays and he can’t keep his hands off Sam. Which is just as well, actually, because Sam has the distinct feeling that he may come apart without his brother their to steady him. Like Sam imagined, Dean’s hands are uncertain, but caring as they follow previously untraveled roads across Sam’s skin. Sam fills the air with his voice where Dean has been stunned into reverent silence. Worship has never been a word for Winchesters, but between them, it gets close. Sam relearns prayer with his mouth on Dean’s throat, down the rest of him, his hands in his hair. Dean is trembling, mumbles something about his experience with men that Sam doesn’t call too much attention to, just takes along with everything else. Sam knows how to do this, knows his own body. Dean follows his lead right up to and over the edge, falling, both unable to keep quiet, calling for each other like they aren’t already as close as two people can get.

Sam’s name is not a question again.

*

After, Sam stands in the bathroom and makes himself think about it.

Half-dressed in a shitty motel in the middle of the night, Sam stands in the washed-out light and takes a mental catalog. His lips are sore, a little bruised, but he finds he likes that feeling, likes knowing what caused it. He’s got a line of hickies up his chest that look like little UFOs until they reach the explosion of red-pink-purple at the crook of his neck. He stares at it in wonder, a little thrill of joy tingling up his spine. He hasn’t showered, only got up to use the bathroom, but it’s late and he doesn’t really want to shower. When he wakes again in a few hours, he’ll probably feel rank, but right now he just…feels right. He can still feel the press of Dean’s skin against his and it’s…not as different as it should be.

This is Sam Winchester. He has always neurotically, codependently loved his big brother Dean more than any of his good sense should’ve allowed. Now, they’re fucking, too.

In the grand scheme of things, the fucking isn’t exactly that big of a leap to make.

The mechanics have changed, but not _them_. Not fundamentally, not where it counts. They aren’t different people for what they’ve done. Sam still recognizes himself and his feelings. He still knows and wants Dean.

It’s almost funny, in a weird sort of way. He doesn’t quite laugh, but he lifts his shoulders, shrugging at himself bemusedly, _how about that, huh, Sammy?_ It sounds like Dean, this time. He shuts out the light.

Dean sleeps like the dead, generally, but he’s awake when Sam comes back out. If the lights were on, Sam would be able to see his own handiwork adorning Dean’s throat and back, the bruise around his wrist where Sam held on a little too tight. As it stands, he can only just see that his brother is looking at him.

Sam had done his thinking and knows he’s… _very much_ okay with the turn their relationship has taken. A sting of uncertainty leaves his chest too cool, wondering if Dean is going to backpedal on him now that he’s had time to sleep on it, has to face Sam when he isn’t out of his mind with desperation. Before the doubt can take any kind of root, though, Dean holds up the sheets, still stripped down to just his boxers beneath them. An answer and a question all at once.

_We’re good,_ Sam answers with the slide of his body back into the sleep-warm sheets beside his brother, the tension evaporating out of him all at once.

_We’re good,_ Dean answers by letting the sheets fall over them and sliding a fraction closer to get his arm around Sam’s side, his sigh tickling across Sam’s shoulder.

Sam stays awake long enough to feel Dean’s weight go heavy and loose across his back in sleep. Falling asleep himself, Sam can’t help but think he finally feels _good_.

Maybe even in a way he won’t have to keep thinking about.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading…know your worth an add a convenience fee
> 
> (Unsexy reminders: sex work is fucking hard, dangerous work and deserves respect, but it’s probably not the solution you’re looking for. Take care of yourselves, dolls.)
> 
> (Fanish Reminders: it’s [FTH](https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/) season!)


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